parceltongue
by Sear
Summary: Harry is a parcelmouth. This changes things, or does it? (Yes, I spelled that right.)


Harry Potter was a very special boy, for a multitude of reason. Firstly, he was an orphan who lived with nasty relatives, the Dursleys, like something right out of a children's adventure novel. Secondly, he was wizard, though he did not yet know this. And thirdly, he was a parcelmouth, meaning he could speak to boxes, wrapped presents, parcels and other box-like containers. This was by far the rarest of young Harry's qualities, and also something he was intimately acquainted with. Of course, Harry didn't know that his gift was called parceltongue, but rather he thought of it simply as Speaking, and himself as a Speaker. That was what the first box he had spoken to had called it, and that term stuck.

Harry's relatives and the kids at school though him odd and a little creepy since he was forever making strange sounds at boxes, as though he could communicate with them. Ordinary people, of course, couldn't understand the sparse and sophisticated language that was parceltongue. Harry's perceived strangeness, along with his bully of a cousin's campaign of terror meant that he had no friends at school. Or rather, he had no human friends. There were boxes and parcels everywhere, and they were perfectly content to befriend Harry.

Harry's very best friend was Wrapped-prettily-and-tied-with-red-string, nicknamed Wrap. He had made her himself when he was feeling extra lonely, she contained a sugar cube, for sweetness, a rock, for strength and several pages from various school books, for intelligence. He had wrapped her just so, with sturdy waxed paper in a subtle but very fetching dun shade and, indeed as her name would imply, tied her together with red string. Wrap went everywhere with Harry, she helped him with his homework, she played guessing games and told stories when they were locked in the cupboard, and she insulted Dudley when he was being meaner than usual.

The most exciting thing to ever happen on Privet Drive was when a new family moved into #6. They had moved all the way from Japan, and their boxes had so many interesting things to tell about their experience on the plane, and the exotic thing they contained, and their home country.

Being a parcelmouth was also constantly being confronted with his own mortality through the death of his friends. Parcels, especially, tended to be very short-lived, their lifespan sometimes measuring only in hours. Boxes could sometimes be similarly short-lived, but sometimes grew to be very old indeed. Aunt Petunia had a very snooty jewellery box that she had inherited from her mother, who in turn had received it from her mother, Petunia's grandmother. It spoke a somewhat old-fashioned dialect of parceltongue that Harry had to concentrate to decipher, and could be very haughty indeed, but it also told Harry about his own mother as a child, so he forgave it its stuck-up attitude. Wrap was less lenient, and usually rustled rudely if the jewellery box grew too pompous.

* * *

One morning, when Harry was respectfully folding the recently deceased Cheerios box for burial, he met his first friend who wasn't a container of some kind. A glowing, blueish man came floating in though the wall, seemingly very upset. When he saw Harry gently bidding the used-up Cheerio box farewell, he stopped abruptly in mid-air and stared. Harry stared back, before he whispered to Wrap.

"Are you seeing this, Wrap? He's floating, and he came through the wall"

The floating man's eyes went even wider.

"You Speak!" he exclaimed.

Now it was Harry's turn to be surprised.

"You Speak, too" he replied, intelligently.

"Yes! I am the Box Ghost, and I speak the noble language of parceltongue, the language of all containers and boxes and parcels. Who are you?" the newly proclaimed Box Ghost asked.

"I'm Harry Potter, and my friend is Wrapped-prettily-and-tied-with-red-string," Harry said, and held up Wrap so that the Box Ghost could see her properly.

"And she is very pretty! Such a glossy, healthy looking paper! Such sharp, crisp corners!" the Box Ghost complimented.

"Oh! Thank you! Are you really a ghost?" Wrap asked.

"I am. I have always loved boxed, parcels and containers, and when I passed on, I was given the sacred duty to shepherd them to their final rest in Box Heaven. I am their Charon. So, thank you, Harry, for being a devoted friend of boxes. Goodbye, Harry and Wrapped-prettily-and-tied-with-red-string, I will visit when I can," the Box Ghost said and left the way he came.

Harry and Wrap just looked at each other, a little touched at the thought of a Great Box Beyond, a little weirded out by the abrupt appearance and disappearance of the Box Ghost.

* * *

The Box Ghost kept his promise. He could not visit very often, since he was constantly busy tending to his flock, but he tried to come a few times each year. Through him Harry and Wrap also got to say a tearful farewell to an old, trusty box who had served at their school before cruelly being discarded over break. Harry and Wrap couldn't thank the Box Ghost enough for that closure.

* * *

Harry was also a wizard. There was a great to-do when his relatives tried to keep him from attending his parents' Alma Mater, but confronted with Hagrid they had to let him go.

Upon finally getting to read his Hogwarts' letter, Harry berated himself for not at least attempting to understand his first Letter before dismissing it out of hand. Letters were not containers in the strictest sense, but they spoke a language that were somewhat similar to parceltongue. With some time and effort Harry could understand them, but he hadn't had that time with the first Hogwarts' letter. When the letter had started speaking of wizardry and owls, he had simply believed that he had completely misheard or that it was mad. (It happened sometimes, when parcels or letters were wrongly addressed. They went a little... strange. Or, completely bonkers, as Wrap put it.)

He also had a near miss with Hagrid. Apparently, there was a great stigma against parcelmouths in the Wizarding world. He found that out at Gringotts, when Hagrid retrieved the parcel containing the Philosopher's stone. He was just about to address it, but got distracted by the cart ride. Instead, Wrap spoke up.

"Hi, I'm Wrapped-prettily-and-tied-with-red-string, and my Speaker is Harry. Who are you?" she asked.

The new parcel rustled in alarmed surprise.

"I'm Wrapped-in-secrecy. Are you here to steal me?" it asked.

"We would never!" Wrap huffed out.

"One can never be too sure! The last Dark Lord is rumoured to have been a parcelmouth, you know, and my sacred duty is to keep the Philosopher's stone from him!"

Inquiring further, Wrap and Harry found out that parceltongue was considered a dark gift. With a little prodding Hagrid told all about how such people must be evil and of dubious moral quality to so easily unveil other wizards' secrets and possessions. It was well-known that all parcelmouths went bad, indeed, the entirety of Slytherin house was tied to the motif of opened boxes and containers, the metaphor for the evilness of the art of parceltongue. Hagrid then compared these supposedly irredeemable parcelmouths with the noble art of Snakespeak, that would only ever be of use to the wizarding community.

The unfounded and blatant prejudice against parcelmouths hurt Harry deeply. Wrap was very offended on his behalf. They also realised that they would have to be very careful in speaking to each other from then on. It made Harry sad, since this new world was filled with interesting new containers with educational stories and funny anecdotes to tell.

In the end, Harry and Wrap made a pact. They would defeat the evil Lord Voldemort and restore the honour of parcelmouths everywhere.

* * *

/Edit to put in the line breaks that stupid ff-dot-net ate *sigh*


End file.
